


look at us all (the tables [sorta] turned remix)

by mathelode (engmaresh)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Phasma - Delilah S. Dawson
Genre: Abuse, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26998429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/pseuds/mathelode
Summary: So maybe Brendol's the dead man here, but Hux plans to be the one who will do the haunting.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Brendol Hux
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Remix Revival 2020 Madness





	look at us all (the tables [sorta] turned remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Pained](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26748514) by [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/pseuds/inquisitor_tohru). 
  * In response to a prompt by [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/pseuds/inquisitor_tohru) in the [remixmadness2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2020) collection. 



> **Additional warning:** There's a very brief passing reference to infanticide towards the end.

There is a moment where his father enters the room where Hux can’t breathe. Of all the things in the galaxy he has prepared himself for, this is not one of them. The adrenaline floods his system, and where he’d usually know to flee, to fight, this time, as it has so many times at the sight of Brendol, it locks him up, traps him in his own body, leaves him weak and helpless.

He doesn’t feel the heavy sniffer strike the toe of his boot and smash upon the floor. Doesn’t hear it shatter. Just hears the ringing in his ears, feels that sickening animal fear.

And then Brendol walks through the corner of a chair, and all the muscles in his body finally unlock--Hux stumbles back, bashes his hip against his desk. The pain helps him focus: there is a blaster in his desk, and if he reaches it before Brendol can reach him he will be safe. When he whips out the weapon, Brendol is almost upon him. Hux doesn’t even need to aim. He presses the blaster against his father’s forehead, just as Brendol curls his meaty hands around Hux’s neck--and it passes through nothing. The fingers gain no purchase. Hux still lurches back, moving as far as he can out of his father’s reach, even as Brendol lowers his hands, looking disappointed.

“So it was you,” he says.

Hux, still not quite believing what he’s seeing, snatches a datacube off his desk and throws it. It passes right through Brendol’s left eye.

“Not going to try to shoot me?” Brendol taunts.

“Personnel would come to investigate a blaster being discharged in officer’s quarters.” The words fall out of Hux’s mouth almost by rote. “And the datacube is more substantial than a--”

“Listen yourself, boy,” Brendol sneers. “You think you’re so clever.”

“Yes,” says Hux. Confirmation that this Brendol is indeed some spectre and not the real deal has helped ease some of the blind panic. Already his pulse is returning to normal. In the back of his mind he flicks through the catalogue of meetings he has scheduled for the day; now he needs to find the time to investigate this. And work on getting rid of his father all over again. “Yes,” he repeats. “You are dead.”

“Good work,” says Brendol, and Hux for the life of him can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. But it figures the only scrap of praise he’d get from his father would come from him after his death. _On_ his death.

“You never suspected it?”

“Of course I did,” Brendol snaps. “You were the first on the list. Never thought you’d have the balls for it, but here we are.”

Here they are indeed. Father and son glare at each as though they could kill by gaze alone. But Brendol is already dead. It is so unfair, Hux laments quietly, that the universe never allows anything to go his way, not even this small victory.

Brendol spins around on a ghostly heel, swaying. It seems death has lent him no additional grace. He heads for the bottle of whisky Hux still has out, only to remember suddenly that he cannot partake in it anymore. He turns back to his son with a bitter scowl on his lips. “So what will you do if I go to the High Command with this information? That you’ve killed one of your own.”

All this has already gone through Hux’s head. He shouldn’t have been so quick to snap back. “What evidence do you have? You have nothing. And I’m not the only person in the Order who hates you.”

“You are most likely to benefit from my death,” Brendol argues.

Hux snorts. “And you think they won’t make me work for it? I know the Stormtrooper training program better than anyone else, better than _you_ by now. I’ve been the one plotting and programming the training sims, improving your outdated models, while you sat in your office and drank! But they will make me beg for the position.”

“And you’re good at that, aren’t you, boy?” Brendol spits back. They’re circling now, like animals, but Hux resists being drawn closer. Brendol is dead. To take the bait would be pure idiocy. “You’re a spineless, useless coward, always were.”

“And I learned from the best. You.” But for the better. Whatever force has brought Brendol back, it has brought him back weak and ineffectual, full of bluster and no bite. And Brendol has been this for a long time, even before his death. Whatever goals he’d ever had for Hux, if any, he’s already far outstriped them. So he’ll grovel before High Command if he has to. For now.

“Have you considered, Father,” he says as he walks back to his desk and comms for a MSE droid to clean up the mess, “that this is a punishment for _you_?”

Brendol’s mien sours further. It looks like he has not.

Hux barely suppresses a smirk. He cannot celebrate too soon, he’s just discovered the folly of that. Brendol’s ghost might yet become a problem--and he does need to start weighing on the necessity of working with Ren on this.

But for now… “Your program will be mine. Your name is already mine. Soon there will be nothing left of you, father. No one will remember you. No one will care.”

Brendol lunges for him and Hux braces himself. Though he manages to repress the flinch, his eye twitches and he digs his nails into his palms until Brendol gives up and retreats again.

“Why don’t you go harass, Cardinal,” Hux suggests. “He might be the only person in the sector happy to see you.”

“I’m surprised you’ve left that fool alive.” Hux viciously squashes down the small surge of pleasure at his father’s disdain. “I’ve already tried. He can’t see me. No one can.”

Oh the agony of blood ties. Is this what it feels like to be chained to something so annoying and useless? Still, Hux thinks, Brendol could have chosen to have had him smothered in his cradle. The fact that he hadn’t is more weakness than Hux has ever shown.

“I have work to do, father,” he says, returning to the report he’d been reading before he’d decided to indulge in a drink. “Kindly fuck off.”

Still scowling, Brendol slowly fades from view like a low grade hologram. The moment he flickers out of existence, a tightness in Hux’s chest immediately eases. For all that it had given no small amount of pleasure to see his father rendered so helpless, so pathetic, the encounter has still shaken him. Not to mention the additional tasks he now has on his plate, ones he can’t delegate lest he be considered a raving madman unfit for duty. First to ensure this is no sick prank, though really, he can’t think of anyone who hates him this much who has enough time on their hands to work on something like this. If it is some Force spectre...the prospect of seeing Kylo Ren with this issue does not appeal to him one iota. And of course to confirm that he is indeed the only one Brendol can communicate with…

Hux grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes. Though he has been sleeping better since Brendol’s death, he _has_ been sleeping less. He contemplates the bottle of whisky, considers pouring himself a second glass, then on second thought locks it away. He shouldn’t be drinking at a time like this.

If his father has truly returned from the dead, Hux does not intend to let him see him fail. If anything, he’ll succeed where Brendol had failed, thrive where he’d stagnated. Hux had proven the stronger of the two, and he fully intends for the magnitude of Brendol’s own failures to haunt him even in death.

**Author's Note:**

> The fic this remix is inspired by reminded me very much of one of the most memorable scenes (to me) from Netflix's Iron Fist Season 1. In fact I actually thought of Hux when I first watched the show earlier this year. There is a chance that Hux might be slightly better at handling such a scenario than Ward Meachum. And he does have the benefit of Brendol being an intangible ghost. (Still, I would very much like to put Hux and Ward in a room together one day, I'm sure they'd have much to commiserate over, my two sad asshole weasel men.)
> 
> Title from Carol Ann Duffy's _We Remember Your Childhood Well_. It's a beautiful, haunting poem, but please be careful if you look it up, it's explicitly about childhood abuse.


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